BRIEF: Group to recommend poster policy

Panhellenic Council Treasurer and representative to the committee's executive board Allison Abell said last night that she, IFC exec board representative Jeff Furman and others would write and submit the proposal to the IFC by the beginning of next term. The proposal, Abell said, would request that the IFC mandate chapter monitoring of all advertisements and would outline some suggestions on how to implement such a policy, but currently committee members do not have any specific details for the proposal. The proposal would also be open to suggestions from other members of the social action committee, Abel added. The recommendation that the IFC look into a poster policy came from the group's education subcommittee, which has been discussing problems of stereotyping for the past month. "What I would like to see is that all organizations be more aware that what they put up affects other people," added Furman. There have been two instances in the past two months -- and four in the past four years -- where IFC fraternities have been criticized for depicting offending stereotypes on their rush posters by minority groups. In October, Sigma Phi Epsilon drew criticism from several campus Latino organizations for advertisements for a rush event which groups said depicted a "lazy Mexican." The chapter took down the posters a few days after they were put up on the advice of IFC President Bret Kinsella. Also, Panhel recently sent a letter to Beta Theta Pi fraternity criticizing a rush flyer that they said was demeaning and sexist. Last month, the Panhellenic Council urged individual sorority chapters to carefully police their advertisements. -- Emily Culbertson

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